


To Grieve the Dawn

by AceQueenKing



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Moving On, Post-Star Wars: A New Hope, Pre-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Stabbing, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-27 15:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15028127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Her fellow rebels whisper he is a demon. Maybe he is.





	To Grieve the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



1.

It’s only a matter of time before he kills her. The Rebellion sends her towards him more and more, and every time she sees him, dark cape billowing, she knows she’s getting closer to death.

She thinks about Anakin as she watches him slaughter her green troops. He’s changed in so many ways that it almost seems unfair that the ways he hasn’t changed are what she finds jarring: the way he is always first through the door, always putting his life on the line for the Empire.

Her fellow rebels whisper he is a demon. Maybe he is.  

* * *

2.

War is hell. Unending hell.

Ahsoka has lived through enough of it that she should be able to shut out the suffering she sees on such a wide scale.

But she can’t.

She’s never quite been able to master that talent, was always wretched at mindfulness and focus as a Jedi, worse at cultivating such skills now. She sees, she remembers, she _mourns_.

Does he still see it? She wonders, browsing yet another report full of too many casualties and not enough victories. Does he shut the suffering out? Can he, anymore?

She doesn’t know which answer she’d prefer.

* * *

3. 

She finds herself thinking about him, her thoughts going to him when she slips into the force; she can sense them through their padawan bond, even after all this time.

Once, and only once, she follows that connection, follows the thread of burnished gold and tarry black as far as it goes.

There is pain there: he is burning, burning bright. The mental eye gasps and turns toward her, and she is certain he sees her whole before she escapes.

 _Ahsoka_? He asks.  
  
She doesn’t answer, just curls into a small ball and sobs. His voice is still her Anakin's.

* * *

4. 

In the end, it’s a child that does her in.

In a battle so hot that even Ahsoka is driven to the backstreets unable to keep up with the rate of laserfire. She has lost her company. She isn’t even sure she _has_ a company. Fulcrum — what a joke. She isn’t the tipping point in _anything_.

She finds the child, sobbing, in the streets on a small, brown planet that used to be a green one. An abandoned child. She’s close enough to home it hurts.

She pauses too long. When his hand clamps around hers, she isn’t surprised. 

* * *

 5.

His hand is exposed.

Bright metal glints in her face; she narrows her eyes. “Leave the kid alone,” she says, and she’s surprised by her own voice.

His hand tightens on her wrist. Neither of them speaks. She realizes in the silence that this is his mechanical hand; a hand she has held a _million_ times.

“The child is not my target,” he says, finally.

“Am I?” She laughs, because she doesn’t know what else to do. “Is all this for me?”

“...No,” He says, as he clips her lightsaber to his belt.

She never thought to draw it.

* * *

 6.

She never thought being taken by the empire would be so lonely.

She sits on a cot, full of cold dignity and little else. He hasn’t even sent an inquisitor, hasn’t come himself since capturing her on– what planet was it? She closes her eyes. She doesn’t remember.

She longs for the rebellion. She longs for things to go back to the way they were, though they never will.

She misses the Jedi temple, the Ghost. She misses Padmé, Kanan, Obi-Wan. All dead now.

They’re all dead, except her and _him_.

She laughs, but tears fall from her eyes.

* * *

 7.  
  
He comes, after a few hours.

She watches as he sits near her. He wordlessly presses a sandwich toward her; crusts cut off just like –

She winces.

“You didn’t belong there,” he says, almost gently. “You’re not one of _them_.”

“I’m more than you think,” she retorts. She shoves the sandwich back. “I eat my crusts now, just _FYI_.”

She can’t see his face, but she knows’s got an eyebrow raised.

“I wish you were dead, you know,” she says. “Truly.”

In the next hiss of breath, she swears, somehow, she hears: _me too._

And then he’s gone.

* * *

 8.  
  
Every day is the same.

He comes into her cell, demands her allegiances over food that tastes painfully of home. She refuses. He leaves.

It repeats. Repeats as her stomach clenches, as her cheeks grow wan. He never says a word about her condition, only that she doesn’t belong here; seems to her she doesn’t belong _anywhere_.

“Go away,” she says, voice barely a whisper. “You choose your path.”

"And you _could_ choose yours,” he sneers. “Instead of dying _pointlessly_.”

She is weaker than she has ever been, but she still has the strength to flip him off.

* * *

9.

“Enough,” he says, after several days.

She smiles, heart full of relief, thinking _finally_. She expects him to pull her lightsaber out, to vanquish her with the pyrelight of their people. When he picks her up, she murmurs no, but he touches her head, like _before_.

She watches wide-eyed imperials watch her as Vader carries her to medbay, straps her into the chair herself.

“No!” She cries, as a One-Bee inserts a saline drip.

“Make sure she’s given nutrients,” Vader barks; “Don’t let her starve. _There will be consequences._ ”

“Coward!” She yells.

But he does not respond. He just leaves.

* * *

10. 

The One-Bee does obey Vader, but it it is not careful.

It unstraps her to take her vitals; while distracted, she leans a little farther, picks a scalpel off of its attachment-belt, pockets it.

When Vader comes, he fails to notice the blade in her hand.

When they’re alone in the corridor, she stabs him, over and over. He gives one muted cry before forcing her off him, throwing her into the wall. The blade falls. His lightsaber ignites.

She smiles, ready to be martyred by the cause.

Vader stares at her. His blood drips down his leg. 

* * *

11.  
  
“Why?”

It is the only word on his lips; she stands, ready to die on her feet.

“Isn’t it obvious?” She grabs his mask, fumbles at the clasps as he presses the blade to her throat. “ _Do it_ ,” she says, and she’s never wanted anything more. She’s tired of war, tired of near misses, tired of circling one another over and over in a death dance. She doesn’t even care about winning anymore.

“You cost me _everything_ ,” she says, in a low rasp, leaning her own neck to the heat of the saber. “I hate you!”

 The lightsaber deactivates.

* * *

 12.  
  
“Why?” She asks, as he clips it back on his hip. He uses the force to slam her back into her cell, and she wraps her hands around the bars. He is bleeding, and for a moment she experiences satisfaction as he stumbles to the door.

“Because,” he says, locking the door. She’s not sure if he’s locking her in, or locking himself out.

“Coward,” she spits. “You’ve killed _enough_ Jedi. How am I special?”

“Ahsoka —“ He says, the first time he’s used her name since — since —

And then his hand finds her face, and she sees: _Everything_.

* * *

13.  
  
Padmé. Obi-Wan; the Ghost and her crew. They trade histories like punches; her hand finds its way to her wound on his side, and neither of them stirs.

She sees it all in one horrible glance: the bargain he’s struck, the horrible price. He doesn’t ignore the suffering, not any more than she does. In the heart of the rebellion’s demon, there is a man, and Ahsoka — his heart is a maelstrom, but it beats for  _her._

He, in turn, sees her true.

They say nothing, but stay together, wordlessly swapping histories, as his blood pools at her feet.

* * *

14. 

He doesn’t come the next day.

It’s another man, then. Tall, puffy; mustached. Pompous.

“Where’s Lord Vader?” she asks.

“Busy.” The man sniffs, holds out his arm. “I am Admiral Ozzel.”

She stares, and he lets the odious hand drop.

“I come to you with a message, little Jedi," he says, sneering. “I bring you a message from our Emperor himself: Kill Vader. We will grant you freedom.”

He presses something into her hand. She knows without looking that it’s her lightsaber.

The man doesn’t wait for an answer; he leaves.

* * *

15.    
  
She stares down at her lightsaber and cries.

When he does come, she sits on her stone bed, meditating. The lightsaber hangs between them.

He opens the door, despite it. He is still limping. She wonders if that is what made the Emperor lose faith in him, or perhaps if it was the way he stayed with her for hours, mourning. Either way, she knows she’d never join Palpatine; she’s seen where that leads.

Besides, she had sworn, once, never to leave him. A prayer she now knows he took seriously. Anakin’s heart does beat still in him, _damn him_. Underneath all that, he is still her master, _her Anakin_.

* * *

 16.  
  
When he comes, their hands meet.  
  
"I know where I belong,” she says. “With you.”

“Good.” He squeezes her hand. He doesn’t apologize for telling her he’d kill her the last time; she doesn’t apologize for trying to kill him here. This is who they are now; wounded beasts, leaning on one another for comfort.

He opens the bars to her prison with one flick of his hand. She walks out.

“We have much to do,” he says, and she doesn’t argue. They do. She’ll get him to spare the rebellion, take out Palpatine. And then —

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?

 _And then._  
  
He says: “We can talk politics later.” He says: “We must mobilize quickly.” He says: “The Emperor will know you as a threat if he doesn’t already. He has been most displeased you have not been…dealt with.”

 And she thinks: Yes, they _will_ talk about politics later, and she will bring him back to the light, whether or not he wants to. She thinks: the Emperor _better_ see her as a threat. She thinks: She will comm Mothma. She will explain.  
  
Ahsoka says: "Bring it on," and squeezes her hand snugly around his waist.


End file.
